Best NBA season in a long while?

Is it because the other teams were that bad or the Bulls, Pistons and Spurs are THAT good?

 

Damon Stoudamire?!?

Now that little shit might get me interested.

Shows you how much attention I pay to the NBA.

 

not a huge NBA fan, but find myself watching more this year than I have in a long time. The western conf is disgusting--a 50 win team might not make the playoffs. The league has been helped by the resurgence of the Celts no doubt, but its also hurt by the Knicks and the Sixers (two old-time basketball crazy towns) being nonfactors.

Playoffs also too long for my liking. NO way it takes two weeks to play seven games. Sched starts in November and goes to june? Sorry, I'm already into baseball and the beach by then. But overall, enjoy watching the west.

 

The playoffs take so long because the league insists every game be on National TV (TNT/ESPN/ABC). They could easily cut down the first round if they wanted to, and probably the second too.

 

As someone who covered the NBA during the glory days of the late 80s/early 90s, I have to agree with the assessment that things are better, but I still don't care a whole lot.

Now some of that has to do with just being older and realizing how little it all really matters. But I never was a fan of the new rules to try to promote more scoring.

Eight seconds instead of 10 to get it across halfcourt. Resets of the shot clock to just 14. This is all unnecessary bs if you ask me.

Just let them play.

When the Pistons made defense so popular in the late 80s, the same people who earlier were complaining that they didn't play D in the NBA now were complaining about the low-scoring games.

People were complaining about the 85-83 games. Well I'd much rather see a good game like that than a 130-124 game. That, to me, is simply not the kind of score two good teams should allow. Paul Westhead would have been proud.

 

Football_Bat brings up a good point about NBA Champions only being Phil Jackson-coached teams, out of Texas or the Pistons. Although that is true, there is a lack of competition in the Finals. Only two finals in the last 14 years have gone the full seven games, while five have gone to six. There were also five sweeps or near-sweeps (five games).

 

Hell, throw in Pat Riley-coached teams all-inclusive, and the inbrededness goes back to 1986.

 

As long as the Lakers don't make the finals, it's a good season.

 

I'm a huge NBA fan. I love regular season games. I'll vehemently disagree with anyone that says NBA players "don't care" about the regular season games. I'll vehemently disagree with anyone that argues that college players "play the game the right way" and "play harder." I don't think the quality of play on the court is any better this season than in previous years. What's different is a re-emergence of traditional powers in large markets. The LA Lakers have the most dynamic player in the league and upgraded their team to legit contender status with the addition of Gasol. Everyone knows about Boston. Detroit is solid as usual. The only thing missing is a decent Knicks team.

At the same time, you have great individual storylines in the league. Shaq traded to the Suns, can he run with the rest of the team? Dwight Howard at the ASG was just phenominal. What tops it off is that he's on a good team with young players. Jason Kidd traded to the Mavs, does he finally get them over the hump?

The difference between this season and previous seasons isn't the on court play, it's the storylines that are surrounding the league at this point. The casual fan is more interested this season. As a hardcore NBA fan, I'm more excited than usual, but that probably has to do with the fact that the team I root for could either end up with the #1 seed in the West or miss the playoffs entirely.

 

Umm, aren't the Celtics first or second in the league in defense? Who says that you need two great defensive teams in the finals? Is that blue font? The majority of the country would much rather watch Celtics-Suns/Lakers/any other exciting West team than Spurs vs. Pistons. Just look at the 2005 finals ratings, or last year's, even with LeBron.

Just looked up the scores for the '87 and '86 finals, in 12 games total, only three times did a team fail to score over 100 points. I don't think anyone was complaining back then about the lack of D.

 

The West is fantastic this season. A team with nearly 50 wins won't make the playoffs. The Suns could fall out of the playoff race entirely if they're not careful. If there's another good draft class, we could be witnessing a dramatic turnaround.

 

Ok, so here's the question. Can we tell if the 'one-year in college' rule has worked yet, or is it too early to tell. Because from where I'm sitting I still see first rounds picks that aren't contributing as rookies, but they are far from the numbers we saw a few years ago.